Peak brightness improvement for LC/DLP based RPTV

Abstract

A method and apparatus for producing an apparent increase in display brightness in an RPTV engine without an actual increase in total light output. Light is generated with an illumination source and optically processed to produce a light beam of rectangular format. The light beam is formed intentionally to have an intensity that is non-uniform, varying from a peak intensity at a center of the beam to a minimum intensity at a periphery of the beam. The optical processing step can include varying the intensity to selectively produce an illumination profile that decreases by at least about 30% to 70% from the peak intensity to the minimum intensity. The optical processing step can further include projecting the light beam through an integrator that is configured to produce an illumination profile that is at least partially controlled by a length of the integrator. The integrator can be configured so that a decrease in length will result in reduced uniformity.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.